


begin, and cease, and then again begin

by Chrome



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fictional Religion & Theology, Fjord throws some bread in the ocean and forgives himself that's the fic, Forgiveness, M/M, POV Fjord (Critical Role), Regret, Rituals, Rosh HaShana | Jewish New Year, Tashlikh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26529832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/pseuds/Chrome
Summary: “Have you been—just carrying that all around?”“Well, we all do, I think,” Caduceus says, blinking. “That’s what this is for.”---For some people, the new year comes in autumn when the old year begins to die. Caduceus shows Fjord a way to let go.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Fjord, Caduceus Clay/Fjord
Comments: 36
Kudos: 109
Collections: All Your Faves Are Jewish





	begin, and cease, and then again begin

**Author's Note:**

> Shanah tovah! Many thanks to the Fjorclay server for their continual support for my very Jewish interpretations of following Melora, and to SpaceChild for beta reading.
> 
> R, this makes very small references to events through episode 110, but no real spoilers if you want to read.
> 
> Title from "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold.

It’s a season of change, Fjord figures. For one thing, Yasha’s hair has started growing in white-blonde. Jester had noticed at breakfast that morning, when Yasha had leaned across the table to grab the plate of sausages and she’d gotten a look at the roots. “Yasha!” she’d gasped. “Your hair is changing color!” The whole table had to have a look then, but Yasha hadn’t been surprised.

Neither, Fjord noticed, had Caduceus—when Fjord had looked up, Caduceus had been sitting in his chair with his cup of tea in both hands, smiling. When Fjord glanced back at Yasha, she had caught his eye and was smiling, too.

So he’d known, Fjord thought. Of course he’d known. Caduceus just knew things.

After breakfast, Jester had dragged Yasha off to go shopping for new clothes. Something about brighter colors and knowing the best shops in Nicodranas. He thinks Caleb had somehow gotten roped in, too, but Fjord managed to dodge getting brought along.

It’s quieter once they’re gone. He almost follows them, or wanders out into the lobby to watch the early bar patrons, but he doesn’t feel like it. He isn’t sure what he does feel, besides restless.

He slips out back instead and wanders a little through the bright streets. It’s a clear fall day, the sky blue, the air just a little chill. The leaves are turning colors, too, and falling off the trees. They lie on the street in oranges and yellows and burgundies, a rainbow carpet of decay. A season of change.

It’s nice. It’s quiet. But he has also, somehow, become unaccustomed to being alone, so he turns back after a while and goes looking for the others. Veth is with her family, so he’ll let her be. He doesn’t know where Beau went. But it’s easy to find Caduceus when he asks Carlos.

“The tall pink one? He went to the kitchen,” Carlos tells him. Fjord thanks him and he goes, making his way past the staff into the back with confidence. No one stops him; he isn’t sure why that feels like a surprise.

It’s easy to spot Caduceus there; he towers over everyone else. The staff have given him a corner, and an oven, and he is mixing something in a large bowl. On the counter is a scattered assortment of things—a couple kinds of sugar, a half-empty jar of honey, some spices. There is a white dusting of flour on the surface, and on Caduceus’s apron, and when he turns to look at Fjord, there is a visible white smear on his nose.

“Hi,” he smiles at Fjord.

“Hi,” Fjord says. “What are you making? Something for Jester?” He comes over to look; it seems to be some kind of batter.

“Well,” Caduceus says. “I think she’ll like it. It’s very sweet. But it’s more for me, really. It’s honey cake for the new year.” He peers at it and seems satisfied. The batter is a lovely golden color. “My aunt usually makes it, so we’ll see how it turns out. Pretty sure I remember how it goes.”

“For the new year?” Fjord glances out the window. It’s not midwinter yet, that’s for sure. The leaves are bright orange and yellow on the trees. “That’s not for months.”

“Not the Elven calendar,” Caduceus frowns. “Huh. I don’t know what it’s called. The—Sylvan calendar, maybe.”

“It’s autumn,” Fjord says. “Are you saying that you—celebrate the New Year in autumn?”

“Yes,” Caduceus says. He smiles. “Does it surprise you, that the New Year would begin in the season where everything dies?”

“I—“ Fjord thinks about what he knows about Caduceus. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“For the new year to be born,” Caduceus says. “The old year has to die.”

Fjord nods. It makes a strange sort of sense. “So there’s a—different calendar? For followers of the Wildmother?”

“Hmm,” Caduceus thinks about it. “Not all of them, I don’t think. But for some of us. It’s the—old calendar, I guess you would say.”

Fjord nods. If anywhere would count time differently, he supposes it would be the speakers of Sylvan, the fae and the faekind. Or perhaps a family of firbolgs living in a haunted wood, passing down a sacred responsibility generation by generation.

He boosts himself up to sit on the counter. Caduceus gives the golden batter another stir and begins to pour it into the pan. “So what do you do?”

“Bake it,” Caduceus answers, quirking an eyebrow.

“For the new year,” Fjord clarifies. “Not the cake. What are you meant to do, besides bake honey cake?” His mind can only supply memories of New Year celebrations he remembers from back in Port Damali. “Do you set off fireworks?”

Caduceus laughs and shakes his head. “Nah. Not really that kind of—you think about things, really. About the old year, and the new one. And you let things go.”

“Mourning a death?” Fjord suggests.

“Sure,” Caduceus says, smiling at the comparison. “And celebrating a birth, too. Guess that’s what the cake is for.”

“Nothing in particular, though?” Fjord asks. “Anything you—do, or say? Anything else you eat?” He has the sense that this is important to Caduceus. He doubts they can recreate the holiday in the way he’s experienced it, but he’d like to give him some part of that.

“Well, there’s a ritual,” Caduceus says slowly. “Actually. I think you might like it. Let’s give it a shot.” He taps the pan carefully on the counter.

“What, like magic?” Fjord asks.

“No,” Caduceus says. “Not the kind you’re thinking of, anyway.” He opens the oven and slides the cake in. “After this one comes out we’ll go down to the water, give it a try.”

“Are we doing it by the ocean?” Fjord asks. “Do you have to do that?”

“Yes,” Caduceus says. “Not just the ocean. Really, any natural water will work. But the ocean’s good. Big and deep. Let me—“ He goes off somewhere and comes back with bread. Fjord goes to take it from him, but before he can put it in his mouth, he realizes it’s old, dry and stale. He lowers it carefully, trying not to look like he was about to take a bite.

“Don’t eat that,” Caduceus says. He takes it back and breaks it into pieces, dividing it between two cloth napkins that he ties it up into two little bundles.

“Are we feeding the birds?” Fjord says, doubtfully. Seagulls are pretty vicious, and he’s not sure they need the help getting food.

“The fish,” Caduceus says, cryptically.

“Right,” Fjord says. Caduceus tucks one of the knotted bundles into the pocket of his coat and hands the other to Fjord. Fjord pockets it, feeling a little silly. “Tell me how this works.”

“I think you had the right idea,” Caduceus says, slowly, “When you said it was about mourning. It’s about—letting go. What we’re going to do is, we’re going to throw some old bread into the water. And it’s going to sink down to the bottom of the ocean, and with it, it’s going to take everything from the old year we don’t want to bring into the new one. Throw all your regrets in the sea.”

“…right,” Fjord says.

“You’ll like it,” Caduceus says, confidently.

“Okay,” Fjord says, because he doesn’t think so but Caduceus has a history of proving him wrong. He waits a moment, and then changes the subject. “So, you didn’t want to go clothes shopping?”

“Didn’t need anything just now,” Caduceus says cheerfully. “You didn’t want to go clothes shopping?”

Fjord shudders a little. “Never,” he says.

Caduceus laughs. They chat idly while the cake rises, a sweet spiced scent slowly filling the air. Eventually Caduceus looks at it and says, apropos of nothing, “Should be right,” and takes it out of the oven. Tipped out onto a wire rack, it looks like a cake—maybe a little lumpier than Fjord has seen in shop windows, but golden-brown in color and smelling wonderful.

“Alright,” he says. “We’ll let that cool. Let’s give this a try. Got your bread?”

“Yes,” Fjord says, instantly apprehensive again. He tries to hide it, following Caduceus out the door of the Chateau.

“Don’t be nervous,” Caduceus reassures him. “It’ll be fine.”

“Right,” Fjord says, feeling a little silly for pretending. Caduceus always sees through it. And what does it matter? Caduceus has seen him nervous a hundred times, or outright terrified, or making a fool of himself. Why bother, even if he could lie?

Old habits die hard. Fjord doubts it’s as simple as throwing some crumbs into the sea.

Still, he follows Caduceus through the streets of the city. The lighthouse is only a few blocks from the Chateau. Caduceus smiles at it as they pass. “It glows, kinda,” he comments, offhand.

“That lighthouse? In the daytime?” Fjord blinks.

“I put that spell on it,” Caduceus says, “To bring us back here. Kinda seems to glow now. Don’t know if you can see it...”

“Ahh…” Fjord squints at it. “I don’t…think so.”

“Huh,” Caduceus shrugs. “It’s nice. Kinda green.”

They pass the lighthouse, continue down the beach. It isn’t sandy here; there’s a little outcropping of black rocks that fold into tide pools.

“Here’s a good spot,” Caduceus says, when they reach the very edge. The waves come up to the rocks in surges and then spill back out, exposing the wet pebbles of the beach before covering it again.

“Alright,” Fjord says, after they’ve stood there a moment, listening to the rush of water. “Let’s hear it, then? If you don’t mind starting us off?”

“You don’t have to say it out loud,” Caduceus says.

“I know, but I—never mind, I guess it’s personal, I just—“ Fjord wants more guidance here, but he’s also hyperaware that he’s treading on the more private part of what is already an intensely personal ritual. “Wanted an example, I suppose.”

“It can be anything you want to let go of,” Caduceus says. “Anything you’ve done that you regret. Anyone you’ve been that you don’t want to be anymore.” He stops talking so long that Fjord thinks he might be done, and then he says something in Sylvan and withdraws one of the chunks of dry bread from his pocket. He presses it between his fingers and it crumbles; he tosses it into the wave that is rolling back out.

“My pride,” Caduceus says, quietly. “And my unkindness. My anger at people who didn’t deserve it. The apathy that stopped me from doing what I should have done sooner. And the fear that I pretended was patience.” He takes another piece of bread and tosses it, crumbs scattering across the surface. “The people I did not save. The people I killed.”

“Are we meant to—be sorry for that?” Fjord asks, quietly. “The killing?”

“I don’t regret it,” Caduceus says, glancing at him. “But I’d like to let them go.”

Fjord nods. He feels bad for interrupting; catches himself almost crushing his own pieces of bread in his pocket. “Sorry.”

“What for?” Caduceus asks. He tosses his last piece in. “Those ten years,” he says. “And everything I let rot because I waited. And my doubt, and my failures.” He pauses, and then he says, “And my guilt for all of those things.” He steps back from the water, and looks at Fjord.

“That’s—heavy,” Fjord says, reeling a little. He tends to think of Caduceus as being a pretty steady person. Certainly he’s been a great source of support for Fjord this past year--for all of the Nein. To find that Caduceus is holding himself accountable for all these little things—that he carries the guilt like a weight—is difficult to reconcile.

It also makes Fjord feel bad. “Have you been—just carrying that all around?”

“Well, we all do, I think,” Caduceus says, blinking. “That’s what this is for.”

“I meant, you had a  _ list. _ ”

“Oh, I’d been thinking about it,” Caduceus admits. “Well, you do think about it, with the end of the year coming up. What you’d like to let go of. I probably should have given you more warning. But I think you’ve been thinking about it a lot anyway, haven’t you?” His gaze is piercing when he looks up, backlit by the orange sun. Fjord had been freaked out at first by how much Caduceus knew just by looking at a person. He’d felt so exposed.

Now he just feels—known, in a way that he has never been known, in a way he hasn’t even known himself.

It’s a nice feeling.

“Yes,” Fjord says. “You haven’t—when I say, carrying that around…”

“They are things I regret,” Caduceus says, “And that I would like to be less of, and that I would like to forgive myself for. But they haven’t been troubling me in the way I think you’re worried about.”

Fjord nods. He isn’t sure that’s strictly true—Caduceus says things sometimes that make Fjord think he is silently punishing himself for transgressions the rest of them don’t notice, tiny instances of faltered virtue that simply pale in comparison to the hot mess that the rest of them are on a regular basis.

“Would you like to go?” Caduceus offers. “I can take a step back. And you don’t have to say anything out loud.”

“What did you say, first?” Fjord asks. “The first thing. In Sylvan.”

Caduceus repeats it. Fjord tries to echo it back, and they go back and forth several more times until Fjord has the shape of it solid in his mouth.

“What does it mean?”

“May our regrets be cast into the depths of the sea.”

Fjord nods. He repeats the phrase and tosses the first piece of bread. He almost says it out loud, but then can’t bring himself to, even though true to his word Caduceus has taken several paces back and is waiting on the higher rocks.  _ That person who wanted so badly to be someone else. Let him be gone. That stupid fake accent. The lying to the people who loved me because I wanted them to believe I was someone else.  _ He chucks another piece of bread in after it. It gets caught in the swell of a breaking wave and it almost looks like the sea is gulping it down.  _ Helping Uk’otoa get closer to breaking free. I should have thrown that sword away sooner, and I knew it, but I was afraid of not being special anymore.  _ Another piece of bread. Caduceus gave him a lot of bread, he thinks. Perhaps he’d anticipated that Fjord had a lot to get off his chest. The motion of throwing it feels good, like throwing the sword into the lava all over again.

What else is there? He has more bread, although he has the feeling it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t toss it all in, or if he just emptied out the knotted napkin without words to go with it. Caduceus had listed things he’d done wrong, ways he’d thought or behaved that he regretted. But he’d also said  _ my guilt for all of those things. _

_ Heavy _ , Fjord had called it, and he’d meant it. Hearing it in litany like that—what a weight. This wasn’t about cataloging his wrongs. It was about unburdening. Letting it go.

Fjord hurls the next piece a little farther, over the top of the next wave.  _ Trying to be someone else. Feeling ashamed of myself. Doubting that the Nein care about me. Doubting that I am worthy of this.  _ He isn’t just doubting himself, when he says that.  _ Doubting the Nein and the Wildmother and Caduceus. _

He’s done with it. Done with the fake accent and the fake persona, done with the lies, done with guarding himself in front of the only people who he thinks have ever really loved him. Done pretending he’s someone else to the point where he isn’t sure who he’s really meant to be. Done with Uk’otoa, with being afraid of him, with letting himself be led to do wrong because he is so desperate to feel wanted.

Done with being so afraid that he never will be wanted that he won’t let anyone in enough to try.

And done with, as Caduceus said,  _ the guilt for all of those things.  _ It’s done. It’s done, and it’s gone. The person who did those things is dead, dead like the crumpling leaves and the plants, fading like the summer faded, crumbling to dust like the last piece of bread he sends sailing into the water, gone to dry crumbs in his fingers.

The year is over. That version of Fjord is gone,  _ cast into the depths of the sea. _

He has let it go.

He dusts the last crumbs from the cloth, from his hands. He walks up the beach to Caduceus, stepping carefully around the tide pools.

“How did it feel?” Caduceus asks.

“Good,” Fjord says, and he is surprised how much he means it when he says, “Actually, I feel much lighter for it.”

“Good,” Caduceus smiles. “I hoped so.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” Caduceus says, after thinking about it a moment. Fjord likes this about him, that he takes every question so seriously, never gives a flippant answer. “I do.”

They walk back up the coast, past the Mother’s Light, through the streets to the Lavish Chateau. Caduceus heads back towards the kitchen and Fjord goes with him, automatically. He doesn’t even second-guess it.

Jester is in the kitchen, eyeing the cake still cooling on its wire rack. She’s leaning in to smell it when they enter and jumps back guiltily.

“Fjord! Caduceus!” She elongates the middle vowel of both of their names. “What were you guys doing?”

They exchange a glance. Fjord isn’t sure how to explain. Isn’t sure if he wants to explain.

“Starting over,” Caduceus says, cheerfully.

“Really?” she leans in and peers at the cake again. “It looks great to me…”

Caduceus just laughs and explains nothing, just starts retrieving ingredients. “I think a glaze would be nice,” Caduceus says. “What do you think?”

“Yes!” Jester cheers.

“I don’t know anything about baking,” Fjord says, when Caduceus looks at him.

“Never too late to start,” Caduceus shrugs. He lays out a little bag of crystalline brown sugar, then a stick of butter and a jar of honey. He offers the wooden spoon.

“Alright,” Fjord says. He accepts it. “Why not begin?”

**Author's Note:**

> If you can, please leave a comment--they mean a lot.
> 
> I'm [catalists](http://catalists.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr or [@chromecatalists](https://twitter.com/chromecatalists/) on Twitter. Come say hi!


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